258 HEADS OF LODGE POLE AND CROW CREEKS. 



thin, varying from half an inch to six inches, between which an 

 occasional layer of brown and reddish argillaceous limestone was 

 found interposed. 



Passing over an undulating and gradually rising country, for 

 seven or eight miles, we at length overtook the train, which had 

 halted to noon on a small tributary of the Laramie River. Aspen, 

 fir, pine, and cedar here occurred in scattering clumps, and the 

 grass has been abundant. From this point we continued our 

 course more to the north-east for four or five miles^ over ground 

 considerably cut up by ravines, when we reached the summit of 

 the ridge, which gives rise to the head of Lodge-pole Creek, an 

 affluent of the South Fork of the Platte, into which it discharges 

 its waters nearly south of Ash Hollow, and about seventy miles 

 above the junction of the two great branches which form that well- 

 known stream. Lodge-pole Creek here takes its rise in a high 

 ;-idge, and falling with a rapid and sudden descent, forms a deep 

 and precipitous canon, at the bottom of which it continues to wind 

 its way until it reaches the plain at the foot of the eastern slope 

 of the Black Hills. It is represented as having a width between 

 the clifis which enclose its valley, sufficient for a road, by crossing 

 the stream from side to side ; but I was deterred from attempting 

 the passage, not only by the rugged descent from the ridge, but 

 by the quantity of timber growing in the canon, through which it 

 would have been necessary to cut our way the whole distance. In 

 addition to this, the ridge appeared to be much lower to the south- 

 ward, in the direction of the heads of Box-elder Biver and Fon- 

 taine qui bouity while, toward the northward, it appeared to be- 

 come higher and still more rugged. This induced me to believe 

 that we had crossed the ridge too far to the northward, and that a 

 more feasible route could be traced south of our line of travel, by 

 which much of the elevation we had attained (which amounted to 

 about a thousand feet) might be avoided. 



We accordingly followed down the ridge in a S. S. E. direction 

 for six miles, when we struck upon a little stream, which we sup- 

 posed to be a branch of Lodge-pole, but which, as we afterward 

 ascertained from some Cheyenne Indians, was a branch of Crow 

 Creek, another affluent of the South Fork, and which flows into it 

 from this point in a north-easterly direction. Here we encamped 

 for the night, with good grass and water, after a very interesting, 

 though somewhat fatiguing journey of twenty-two miles. Immense 

 droves of bufi'alo were seen in every direction during the day. An 



